Experiments in Fast, Autonomous, GPS-Denied Quadrotor Flight

TL;DR

This paper presents a quadrotor system capable of high-speed autonomous navigation in unknown, obstacle-rich environments with minimal latency, achieved through efficient algorithms and integrated subsystems, even with payload constraints.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel quadrotor system that enables fast, autonomous GPS-denied flight at speeds over 18 m/s in complex environments, with detailed system integration and component technologies.

Findings

Successfully navigated at speeds over 18 m/s

Robust autonomous flights in obstacle-rich environments

Efficient onboard algorithms for real-time processing

Abstract

High speed navigation through unknown environments is a challenging problem in robotics. It requires fast computation and tight integration of all the subsystems on the robot such that the latency in the perception-action loop is as small as possible. Aerial robots add a limitation of payload capacity, which restricts the amount of computation that can be carried onboard. This requires efficient algorithms for each component in the navigation system. In this paper, we describe our quadrotor system which is able to smoothly navigate through mixed indoor and outdoor environments and is able to fly at speeds of more than 18 m/s. We provide an overview of our system and details about the specific component technologies that enable the high speed navigation capability of our platform. We demonstrate the robustness of our system through high speed autonomous flights and navigation through a variety of obstacle rich environments.